Pumpkins (review)

If your pumpkin-book stash is getting a little stale, here's a fresh entry just in time for the high-demand autumn season. Robbins traces the life cycle of the pumpkin, offering in each spread just enough readaloud text and a framed photograph on one page, and a full-bleed photo on the facing page, all in the saturated colors for which he is noted. Orange fruit and green field, glowing jack-o'-lanterns and inky skies make naturally engrossing visual contrasts, and the intentionally blurred pictures of costumed ghouls and their eerily glowing, glowering pumpkins is only exceeded in creepiness by the photo of crushed, rotting fruit and withered vine at season's end. There's a little plant science ("The first small leaves come up in ten days or so, and in just a few weeks the vines spread out and flower buds begin to show"), a little celebration ("People hold contests to see who can grow the biggest ones. The gigantic pumpkin on the forklift weighs over a thousand pounds"), and a lot of crowd-pleasing eye candy.